Young Adult (YA) Short Stories

The Weight of Summer Light

By Tony Eetak

The oppressive summer heat hung thick and heavy, a blanket woven from humidity and the persistent hum of distant insects. Inside the community centre, the air was still, stagnant, despite the single, rattling floor fan in the corner. Paint peeled in languid curls from the window sills, and the scent of old wood and something vaguely metallic—the static charge of a dying fridge, perhaps—clung to everything. It was a place where time felt less like a river and more like a sluggish pond, mirroring the slow, quiet struggle of the community it served.

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The Glazed Path

By Jamie F. Bell

The city's winter bites hard, transforming familiar paths into treacherous sheets of ice and slush. Amidst the grey, churning landscape of a university campus, Siobhán confronts the harsh realities of urban life, far from the quiet, predictable snows of her northern home, seeking a fragile foothold in a world that feels increasingly alien.

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Verdant Decay

By Jamie F. Bell

The heat of high summer clung to everything, a humid shroud that muffled sound and sweetened the air with the cloying scent of honeysuckle and rot. Sunlight, thick and buttery, struggled through a canopy of overgrown trees, dappling the long-forgotten drive leading to the estate. Vines, like grasping emerald fingers, had begun to reclaim the stone walls, patiently, relentlessly pulling the old world back into the earth. An unsettling stillness hung heavy, broken only by the incessant buzz of unseen insects and the occasional creak of aged timber in the barely perceptible breeze.

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Unfurling Tarnished Copper

By Jamie F. Bell

The prairie city, usually stoic under the expansive autumn sky, hummed with a low, electric thrum beneath a veneer of carefully maintained order. Leaves, the colour of tarnished copper and dried blood, skittered across the neatly swept boulevards, driven by a wind that carried the metallic tang of coming snow and the faint, ever-present scent of ozone from the omnipresent atmospheric monitors. It was an afternoon like any other, designed for predictable progression, until a flicker on a public display shifted the meticulously curated civic calm.

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Rust and Forgotten Currents

By Jamie F. Bell

The air inside the Port Haven Mill tasted like forgotten rain and old metal, a metallic tang that clung to the back of the throat. Autumn's chill was amplified by the concrete walls and broken windowpanes, allowing slivers of a grey afternoon sky to cut through the perpetual gloom. Dust motes, thick as fog, danced in these weak beams, swirling around machinery that looked like skeletal remains of some ancient, hungry beast. Every step echoed, a hollow protest against their intrusion.

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Beneath the Settled Dust

By Jamie F. Bell

A biting autumn chill had long settled into the bones of the old municipal building, turning every dust motes dance into a sluggish waltz through shafts of weak, late afternoon sunlight. The air, heavy with the scent of mildewed paper and decaying wood, pressed in on them, making every whispered conversation feel amplified, every floorboard groan a potential betrayal. Spiderwebs, thick as old lace, clung to the corners where the walls met a ceiling stained by decades of forgotten leaks, painting a picture of deliberate neglect, a place the town had chosen to forget.

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A Breath of Dust and Forgotten Air

By Jamie F. Bell

The air in the old Portlock Community Hall’s storage room was thick with the scent of forgotten paper and decaying wood, a musty perfume that clung to the back of Jeff’s throat. Flecks of dust, disturbed by their cautious movements, danced in the weak light filtering through a grimy window, making the already cramped space feel alive with unseen spectres. Every creak of the floorboards under their worn trainers seemed to echo, magnifying the silence that pressed in from the deserted building around them.

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The Weight of Iron and Doubt

By Jamie F. Bell

A bitter, late autumn wind, sharp with the tang of rusted metal and forgotten industry, whipped through the skeletal remains of the old processing plant. Moonlight, thin and bruised, struggled to penetrate the cloud of dust kicked up by something large, something relentless, moving in the gloom. The air thrummed with a low, predatory hum, vibrating through the cracked concrete and the very bones of the teenagers who pressed themselves against cold, unforgiving steel.

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The Green Choke

By Jamie F. Bell

The Whispering Woods had always been a place of quiet solitude, ancient trees guarding their secrets. Now, an unnatural, virulent green glow pulsed within its depths, clinging to every branch, every rock, and every strand of the old hydro lines that snaked through its heart. The air itself seemed heavy, charged with the sickly-sweet scent of decay and something metallic, like ozone. It was a suffocating beauty, a silent, creeping invasion.

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The Scoured Periphery

By Jamie F. Bell

The crisp bite of an autumn afternoon had curdled into something metallic and acrid. The air, usually redolent with damp earth and pine, now carried the tang of ozone and scorched electronics. A low, persistent hum vibrated through the pavement, a sound that had been background noise for weeks, now magnified to a terrifying, palpable threat. Smoke plumed from the east, an angry smudge against the bruised purple of the late afternoon sky, painting the familiar streets in hues of alarm.

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Echoes in the Gilded Cage

By Jamie F. Bell

The air hung thick with the ghosts of commerce, a fine, silver dust motes dancing in the weak light filtering through the grime-streaked skylights of what was once the Obsidian Gallery, a temple to forgotten desires. Cracked marble tiles stretched into the gloom, reflecting the skeletal remains of mannequins draped in tattered finery, their vacant stares fixed on phantom shoppers. Overhead, a single, rusted chandelier, half-fallen, cast long, distorted shadows that writhed with every breath of the chill, stagnant air. The only sound was the scuff of their boots, a tiny disruption in the grand, echoing silence.

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A Confectioner's Almanac of Forgotten Time

By Jamie F. Bell

The street, wet from an earlier spring shower, shimmered under a hesitant sun. The air carried the damp scent of new growth mingling with exhaust fumes. Ahead, the candy shop, a defiant block of faded green, seemed to ripple at the edges, a deliberate anachronism in a world always rushing forward.

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Keys and Courage

By Tony Eetak

Marvin sits hunched over a dusty electronic keyboard in the back room of a small church, his fingers hovering over the keys. Autumn light filters weakly through a high window, illuminating motes dancing in the air. His Uncle Ted is nearby, watching patiently.

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